


Critical Components

by SylvanFreckles



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Dehumanization (Detroit: Become Human), Dehumanization, Gen, Hank Anderson Swears, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Protective Hank Anderson, Stabbing, android headcanon, android repair headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27779281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanFreckles/pseuds/SylvanFreckles
Summary: The real rescue wasn’t when Hank shot the bastard who stabbed Connor in the leg. The real rescue was when he pulled his friend out of the hellhole that was the official CyberLife repair facility.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 133





	Critical Components

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into Detroit: Become Human! This was supposed to be an entry for Comfortember, even though I didn’t get anything finished until the end of the month, but the plot ran away from me.

“Jee-sus,” Hank whistled, crouching down to examine the scattered remains of the android they'd been searching for—housekeeping model, if he wasn't mistaken. “The hell happened here?”

Connor's LED was blinking yellow as he processed the crime scene—they were supposed to be here to question a witness to a homicide a few blocks away, but it looked like they'd just found another victim. “She's not intact,” Connor observed. Hank rolled his eyes—even he could see that. Between the wires and the splatter of blue blood and the plastic exo-skin that had been fucking _carved_ off.

“Anything else?” he asked sarcastically.

“I mean not all of the components are present,” Connor clarified. He crouched beside Hank and gently turned over one of the biocomponents to check for the serial number. “These appear to be approximately twenty-three percent of an HK400 android.”

“Twenty-three percent?” Hank rocked back on his heels, staring down at the scattered plastic around them. “There's a lot more than that here, Connor.”

“Yes. It would appear these are the partial remains of at least seven androids.”

Hank rubbed a hand over his face. “Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“I'll call it in,” Hank announced as he shoved himself back up to his feet. “See if we can get an ID on the victims here, establish a pattern for this asshole.”

“If they were standard models that won't be difficult,” Connor replied, proceeding into the next room of the ramshackle townhouse. “Original factory parts would be registered under the android's serial number, as well as replacements from reputable establishements.”

“Yeah, here's hoping they were up to date on their warranties,” Hank grumbled. He turned aside to call dispatch, requesting a crime scene team and a tech from the department's newly-formed anti-android crime unit.

It had only been three months since the revolution and CyberLife going under, and things in Detroit were less than peaceful, to say the least. He'd been relieved when the captain had let Connor join the force, even if that meant the two of them handled most of the android cases. Again.

Funny, it didn't bother Hank as much as it used to.

“What else you got?” Hank called, wading through the scattered android pieces as respectfully as possible.

“Thirium. A lot of it. From at least eight different models.”

“Shit,” Hank hissed again. “All right, come on, let's wait outside for the CSI guys. No good contaminating this any further.”

There was a hint of movement in the next room and Connor leaned into the doorway. “I cannot contaminate a crime scene, Lieutenant. I do not leave DNA evidence or fingerprints, and I can process trace evidence in real time. It would be more efficient to begin processing the scene now.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not leaving you in here by yourself,” Hank argued. “Not with some yahoo who's been carving up androids on the loose. We'll wait for backup.”

One hand on his hip, Hank stared down his partner. The kid had to know he was right. They'd been expecting a witness, not a blood bath—there was no telling what (or who) could be in the rest of the house. Connor's LED flickered for a moment, then his shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. If Hank hadn't been around the kid almost 24/7 for the last three months now he might not have seen it, but there were benefits to having a newly-deviant android crashing on your couch.

Fuck. _Living_ on your couch. Time to man up and face it...he was stuck with the kid.

Hank turned away to pick his way back through the android parts. God, that was creepy. Not as bad as finding bloody human parts, but still creepy. Some of them were intact enough he expected them to twitch back to life any second. What the hell was this fucker even doing?

There was a crash behind him, and Hank spun around just in time to see _something_ leap out of a pile of refuse in the corner of the room and tackle Connor back into the back room of the house. Hank yelled out a warning and tugged his gun free, android pieces scattering as he ran for the next doorway.

“ _Hank!_ ”

He pulled up short in the doorway. The thing, whatever it was, was grappling with Connor. They were too close together for him to get a clear shot, even when he saw the jagged knife in the thing's upraised hand.

“Hank, shoot him!” Connor gasped.

“Shut up,” Hank snapped. “You! Detroit Police! Hands up and back away.”

The thing sneered, a ragged hood falling back to reveal a man with scraggly hair and a wild-eyed expression. He threw his weight to one side, then the other, finally breaking free from Connor's grip enough to catch the android across the face with the blade.

Connor recoiled and the man threw himself backward, somehow rolling under Hank's guard before he could adjust and springing up with the knife upraised. But Connor was there, forcing the arm with the knife away from the man. The man spun Connor around so that he collided with Hank, knocking the lieutenant into the wall and sending his gun sliding away.

Hank swore again and tried to back away further as the knife flashed through the air. He knew it caught on Connor's arms more than once, but he didn't wait to see. As soon as he had a clear path Hank was diving for his gun, sliding around on the broken tile floor to get into a firing position.

“Hank!”

Oh god. He'd finally gotten himself turned around the right way in time to see the man plunge his knife into Connor's right leg. And again. And again. Connor toppled back, trying to shove the man away as his own blue blood splattered across the older stains on the tile.

The knife flashed again. And again. He was carving his way up Connor's leg, to his stomach, toward his thirium pump...

“Hey!” Hank bellowed. As he'd hoped, the man straightened up and whirled around to face him, knife still dripping blue blood, eyes bloodshot and wild. Hank squeezed the trigger—Connor was sprawled on the ground, out of the line of fire—and three shots caught the man in the chest and sent him collapsing on top of the android.

“Connor?” Hank swarmed to his feet and hurried over, peeling the corpse of their attacker away. “Fuck, Connor, you okay?”

He wasn't. The kid grabbed at Hank's arm, LED flickering red, shaking in shock or pain or whatever the hell damaged androids went through. There were superficial cuts across his arms and face, but the stab wounds in his leg and up his body were leaking thirium and Hank could see the severed ends of sparking wires through the tears in Connor's exo-skin. “Can't...I can't...”

“Hang on, son,” Hank shucked his jacket off and draped it over the kid, more to keep Connor from staring at the damage to his own body than to protect him from further damage. He tugged his phone off his belt and dialed dispatch again, free hand wrapping around Connor's thirium-stained fingers. “This is Anderson. We need a repair tech, now, Connor's been hit....”

* * *

They hadn't let him ride in the ambulance. They hadn't let him come to the emergency room. Hell, they hadn't even responded to his calls until the captain practically got a fucking court order. Now, three days later, he was finally here.

The Facility.

Hank pulled up outside the dour gray building and stared at it for a moment. The repair techs had just whisked Connor away, assuring Hank that he'd get the best care and come back in perfect working order—in a week to ten days.

That was bullshit. He was getting the kid _now_.

Nobody liked to be in the hospital, especially the fucking android hospital where they didn't even allow visitors. In the days since the revolution most of the CyberLife outlets and repair shops had closed, leaving just the central repair facility. By all accounts it was a miserable place, more like a factory than a hospital. Maybe that was acceptable when androids were nothing more than machines, but not now. Connor hadn't even been activated for a year now and he'd already spent too damn long on his own, no way was Hank leaving him hurt and alone in some soulless factory.

Hank climbed out of the car, still staring at the building. It was a massive, U-shaped structure, with the entrance at the bottom of the U. That part of the building housed the reception and technician offices, the actual wards themselves were in the two wings that stretched out to the back. The open space in the middle of the U was reserved for loading bays, lining up to each ward...because they shipped the broken androids here like so much freight and then just shipped them back out.

He ignored the “No Visitors”, “By Appointment Only”, and “CyberLife Authorization Required” signs on the door and shoved his way in.

The receptionist— _human_ receptionist, he noticed with some surprise—smiled up at him patiently from behind the long counter. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Hank dug into his jacket pocket, pulling out the sheaf of papers with the official stamp of the Android Liberation Committee on the top. “I'm here to pick someone up.”

The woman's brow furrowed in concern as she took the documents. “I'm sorry, we don't handle the release of repairs here. Your android will be returned to you once repairs are completed—you should have received an email with that information, you can check its repair status there.”

 _It_. Hank had meant to remain calm and civil. These were civilians, after all. Just doing their job, after all. It wasn't their fault that they were stuck in a shitty situation with dumbass rules. But hearing the receptionist casually refer to Connor as an _it_ had Hank seeing red.

Hank slammed one hand on the counter, next to the paperwork, making the receptionist jump. “He's not a fucking _it_. He's my partner. I spent three goddamn days putting this shit together, and it says I can take him home. Got it?” He jabbed his finger against the paperwork to emphasize his point.

The receptionist had gone pale, but she picked the documents back up and thumbed through them. “Lieutenant Anderson?” she finally asked meekly.

“That's right.” Hank had leaned back a little, but still kept one hand on the counter.

“I'm sorry, sir...I was told to expect you, I just...you'll find your andr...uh, Connor...in bay D-19.”

He didn't wait for her to offer to guide him—not that she did—and snatched the paperwork out of her hands. There were clear signs on the walls behind her, pointing that wards A and B were to the left and C and D to the right, and just inside the hall to the right was a further map of the Facility.

Ward D was the ground floor, at least, so no finding an elevator or stairs. Hank stared at it for a moment, seeing nothing but big, warehouse-like spaces on the map, labeled with numbers. _1-80, 81-160. 161-240_ and so on. So...D-19 must be in the first big room?

He glanced at the other side of the map and froze for a second. There were a jumble of labs and technical spaces all in ward A, the top floor. Ward B had only one label... _Recycling and Incinerator_. Fuck. They shipped androids off to be repaired less than a hundred yards from the place built to destroy them.

Hank shook himself off and stormed down the hall, easily finding the double doors that lead to the room he needed. But as if his day couldn't get any more horrifying, he pulled up short again when he saw what was on the other side.

He thought he'd been prepared for this, prepared to see some clinical, impersonal repair lot. Androids hanging in racks until their repairs were completed, or shoved into little cabinets. Tiny cubicles with the walls covered in diagnostic machinery...the chair from _A Clockwork Orange_ , complete with headgear to keep an android's eyes pried open for whatever the hell they did.

These were just...beds. Four rows of twenty, each in a numbered space marked out on the floor, all lined up side by side in a massive room barely lit by bare bulbs overhead. Each bed had an IV stand and a monitor attached, the glow of the monitors casting a lurid green light over the androids beneath them.

When he stepped closer, he realized the androids were all strapped down. And hell, these weren't even beds—they were tables. Bare metal tables. The androids had their skin programs deactivated and most of them weren't even clothed, just smooth, blank plastic as far as the eye could see. They were all in stasis, or something like it, lying still and quiet with their eyes half-closed.

Hank hurried to the first row and followed it back, almost to the end of the row. Even in the dim light he recognized Connor before he got there—they'd deactivated the kid's skin like everyone else, but they'd just cut parts of his uniform away to tend to his wounds, so the scraps of his dark jeans and button-up shirt were a stark contrast to the pale gray exo-skin. Just like the others, he was so motionless on the table he could have been an empty shell, only the incomprehensible data scrolling past on the monitor seemed to indicate there was anything left alive in there.

“Connor?” Hank winced when his voice seemed too loud in the quiet space around him. He leaned over the side of the table to rest one hand on the android's face. “Hey, Connor, you in there?”

“Mr. Anderson?”

Hank glanced over his shoulder to see a dark-haired man in a lab coat standing a few feet away. “Lieutenant,” he corrected. He didn't extend his hand to shake, and the other man didn't offer. “I have clearance to take him home.”

“I'm William Adair, I'm the chief technician who worked on your RK800,” Adair explained. He had a tablet in his hand and was swiping through notifications. “I was hoping to catch you before you made off with it.”

 _It_ again. Hank ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay calm this time. He wouldn't help anyone if he decked Connor's technician. “Yeah, well, here I am.”

“Of course,” Adair smoothed one hand over his hair and looked up at Hank. “I know this is an awkward question, but you are aware that your android is a prototype?”

“He's not really _my_ android,” Hank growled. “He's his own fucking person. Nobody owns him.”

Adair's smile was condescending. “And yet it has a registration number engraved on its chassis. But I didn't come here to discuss philosophy, as...interesting...as that might be with a person of your character. I came to make a proposition.”

Hank, still seething from the technician's callous behavior, folded his arms across his chest. “Answer's no.”

“But you don't even know what I'm offering!” Adair protested. He dropped his tablet on top of Connor's feet and pushed past Hank to make an adjustment to the monitor. “As a prototype, your android was built with state-of-the-art software I've never seen before. Some of these biocomponents are so specialized we can't even begin to understand them. I sent scans to the lab, but if you would authorize-”

“Is he good to go?” Hank cut in. He wasn't interested. Even if he _had_ owned Connor, he wouldn't sell his partner to be picked apart by people like Adair.

Adair sighed. He leaned across the table to pick up his tablet and swiped through a few more screens. “We had to rebuild most of the synthetic muscle in its right leg,” he explained. “The damage was similar to a severed hamstring, so it isn't as simple as replacing a damaged component. The repairs are completed but they haven't fully calibrated with its systems. I don't see why you'd want to take it home right now anyway, it's just going to lie in the corner and need routine adjustment as the synthetic muscle molds to its structural framework. Might as well leave it here where it's out of your way.”

Hank's hands tightened into fists. If there had been any other technician in sight he would have decked this little asshole and found someone else to release Connor. As it was he had to be a god-damn nice guy. “That's my decision to make,” he ground out.

“Very well,” Adair shook his head. “Pity. We could have learned so much.” He must have sensed Hank's impatience, as the technician's hand starting tapping out commands on his tablet. The cords binding Connor to the table broke apart and retracted into the table, and the monitor began running new lines of code.

Connor shifted on the table. It wasn't much, just his head turning a little to one side and his eyelids moving, but it took a weight off of Hank's chest. “Connor?” he was back up beside the kid again, picking up one cold, plastic hand. “It's okay, son. I'm right here.”

The android shifted again, eyes opening, blinking as though he was having trouble focusing. Adair let out an impatient sigh and tapped something else on the tablet. The monitor whined in protest and Connor's back arched as he shuddered against a sudden jolt of electricty.

“The hell you doing!” Hank demanded, whirling on Adair, still holding Connor's hand. He'd felt that, felt the shock race through his friend's body.

“We can't just wait around for it to come out of stasis,” Adair complained. “You wanted to get it out of here and that's what I'm doing.”

Connor's other hand came up to grip Hank's forearm, and he turned around in time to see Connor fighting to sit up. Hank stepped in a little closer, sliding his arm behind the kid's shoulders to pull him up, letting him lean a bit against Hank's chest.

“H-Hank?”

“It's me, son,” Hank replied. He rubbed his hand across Connor's shoulders, watching as the android's skin projection slowly crept back across his face. “Ready to blow this joint?”

Connor was staring down at his body, at the smooth patches of skin that showed through his torn clothing. “My repairs are incomplete.”

“They're close enough. We can take care of the rest at home.”

Adair let out a long, unhappy sigh. “I'll send you the adjustments it'll need. You'll have to keep an eye on it over the next three days. If that's all you need, I trust you can find your own way out.”

“Wait a second, hang on,” Hank twisted to glare at the technician. “Got a wheelchair or something?”

“A wheel...of course not,” Adair shook his head. “Why would we need one of those?”

Hank rolled his eyes. “He's gotta keep off that leg for a while, right? How else is he supposed to get outta here?”

“It's supposed to remain in the Facility for another four to seven days,” Adair retorted. “Then its table would be wheeled to the loading dock where it could be crated to be shipped to your residence or a retail location.”

“Well that's not happening,” Hank released Connor to fold his arms across his chest. “So think of something.”

Adair's face flushed. “Mr. Anderson, you have no authority-”

“Lieutenant,” Hank interrupted, emphasizing his rank. “Do you want me to call my captain down here to have _another_ word with you? Or do you want to get me a fucking chair?”

The technician stared at Hank, fury twisting his features, then he spun on his heel and stalked away. Hank huffed out a sigh and leaned back against the table, knocking into Connor's shoulder as he did. “You okay, kid?”

Connor was silent for a moment. “I appear to be functioning at 74% capacity.”

“Not what I meant.” Hank turned until his side was against the table so he could look Connor in the eye. “They treat you okay here?”

There was a hesitation—probably a fraction of a second, but long enough for someone who _lived_ with an android to notice—before Connor spoke again. “I have no complaints.”

“Bullshit,” Hank waved his hand at the space around them. “This is...this isn't right. They just knock you out and tie you to a table. Plenty to complain about.”

Connor looked down. “Not... completely.”

“What's that?” Hank leaned closer to his partner. “What's that mean?”

“Nothing, Hank. Forget it.”

“Nuh-uh.” He ducked down, trying to see eye-to-eye with the kid again, resting one hand on top of Connor's. “I can do this all day, Connor. What do you mean 'not completely'?”

Connor sighed, still staring at his hands. “The stasis here...it's not a complete stasis.”

Hank felt his eyebrows shoot up. “Not complete?”

“We still have...there is still auditory and tactile input.”

He tried to line those words up in his head, find their meaning in plain English. “Hang on. Are you saying you could hear and feel everything those bastards were doing to you?”

“It is common for an android to be aware of what repairs their system is undergoing,” Connor explained. “During the course of our first investigation I was subject to repairs on more than one occasion. It just feels...different now.”

Invasive, Hank's mind supplied. Bodily autonomy was a bitch. And, judging by what that Adair creep was saying, who knew what else the techs would poke around with when they got their hands on someone like Connor. “When we get home you're gonna tell me everything those bastards said and did while you were under,” he said, voice low, as the sound of squeaking wheels got closer. “Then we can decide if the Liberation people or the captain need to know further, all right?”

Connor nodded, clearly uncomfortable at this line of conversation. Hank folded his arms to watch Adair's struggling form come closer, dragging a dark shape behind him in the dim light.

It was a fucking office chair.

“That's all we have,” the technician snapped, seeing the expression on Hank's face. “You asked for something with wheels, this is what we have. Unless you want me to get one of the refuse bins from the incinerator.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “Let's get out of here, Connor.”

Oh well. It was better than nothing.

* * *

“Sumo, down!” Hank hissed, trying to shrug Connor a little higher. The android's right leg was too weak to hold him up, and had been locked in a complicated brace that kept him from bending his knee. Thanks to the office chair they'd gotten him to the car at the Facility, where he'd been able to stretch out in the back seat, but once they got home Hank had to haul him into the house on his own.

“Little farther,” he grunted, shuffling slowly through the living room, one arm around Connor's back with the android's arm draped across his shoulders. “Sumo, no! Kitchen, boy, get in the kitchen!” Of course the big, furry oaf would decide to lie down directly in their pathway, just as both men were about to lose their strength.

“Your fault,” Hank grunted as they shuffled past the dog. “You spoil him.”

Connor gave a breathless laugh, which turned into a groan of relief as Hank finally eased him down onto the couch. “You spoiled him first.”

“Yeah, well,” Hank scrubbed a hand through the thick fur on the top of the dog's head. “I'm a sucker.” He studied Connor for a moment then made his way to the bedroom closet. “When's the first adjustment?” he called over his shoulder.

“In...ah, in an hour,” Connor replied. As far as Hank could understand, the synthetic muscle in Connor's right leg needed to be stretched back into place, but it could only be done in increments. Every few hours they'd need to change the dials on the brace on his leg, which would stretch the muscle out another fraction, then Connor would need to rest so his healing program could strengthen the fibers of his muscle. It was a long, painful process and Hank could understand why it was the sort of thing usually handled by android repair facilities...but that place had been a nightmare.

And now? Now that he knew Connor would be aware of it the entire time anyway? Yeah, he was better off staying at home, even if it meant waking them both up every three hours for the next four days.

Hank came back out with a pair of basketball shorts and a sweatshirt from Connor's minimal stash of non-office clothing. “Wanna get changed?” he offered. The Facility hadn't done anything to replace Connor's clothes. Hank supposed if they had gone through the whole repair they might have shipped him back in a standard android uniform, but...shit. The less they had to do with that place the better.

Connor struggled up to his elbows, fighting with the buckle on his belt. Hank held up a hand and dropped the clothes on the back of the couch, digging out his knife instead. The clothes were ruined anyway; might as well save the kid some pain and just cut them off the rest of the way. At least the shorts were loose enough to slide over the leg brace, and Hank had helped injured (and intoxicated) colleagues enough that it wasn't _completely_ awkward to help his friend dress.

Sweatshirt and shorts in place, Connor practically slumped into the sofa, one hand rubbing at his side where the new repair was obviously still tender. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Hey, you've dragged my drunk ass around too many times to count,” Hank replied, dodging the kid's gratitude. It felt...awkward. Connor was just so damn earnest about everything. “It's only fair.”

“Not just that,” Connor shook his head. “The Facility. It's not a very comforting place. It's not...easy to remember who you are when they still tell you you're a machine.”

“Yeah,” Hank grunted. He leaned over the back of the couch, drumming his fingers against the cushion. “The way that Adair guy was talking. Did he say anything to you? Y'know, while you were under?”

Connor didn't answer right away and Hank didn't press him, letting the silence stretch out between them. “He kept talking about how valuable my biocomponents are,” Connor finally answered.

“That bastard.”

“Wondered what kind of offer you would take, if CyberLife would release any programming files for comparison. Like I was...”

“A machine,” Hank finished. “Yeah. Guy was a real scumbag.”

Connor closed his eyes and folded his hands over his stomach, exhaustion starting to pull him under. “I would prefer not to return there, if possible.”

Hank chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Just don't get stabbed next time, then.” He tugged the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over Connor. Get some rest. See you in...forty-eight minutes.”

The kid was already asleep...in rest mode...in stasis...whatever it was, by the time Hank parked himself in the recliner.

That Adair bastard could bite him. Connor wasn't going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> The original plan was: Hank rescues Connor from the android “hospital” because it turns out android hospitals are actually terrible places. Then I had to show why Connor was in the hospital. Then the head technician turned into an absolute bastard. Then I realized it wasn’t just a comfort fic anymore and I was building a world around this little grain of an idea. So here it stands, on its own.


End file.
